Well She Seems Nice
link Justin Bieber: Selena Gomez Is “Amazing!” – Healthy Lifestyle – UsMagazine.com.
There it is again. That default word for describing everything in western society. Amazing. The dictionary.com definition for amazing is:
–verb (used with object) 1. to overwhelm with surprise or sudden wonder; astonish greatly.
So for example, if you were standing next to someone and he pulled a chainsaw out of his ears, that would be considered amazing. It’s unlikely Ms. Gomez performed such an amusing trick, so I wonder what it was that inspired such awe from Mr. Bieber. Perhaps she was able to conjure up all manner of remarkable tricks. For all we know, maybe she is able to apparate spontaneously like Jeannie from the old I Dream of Jeannie TV show. That would in fact be amazing. If her name was Grace, that would also be legitimate because there is a song which has already established that.
It is more likely that he was just using the word as everyone else in pop society does these days, incorrectly. No doubt, Ms. Gomez is charming and reasonably attractive. I’m not sure that would qualify as amazing, unless of course, Justin had very low expectations. Not that long ago, the au courant word was ‘awesome’, as in awesome duudde! Though also possessed of hyperbole, awesome is a better adjective than amazing in describing superior events or objects.
How does one have an amazing meal? Did the food just appear from nowhere? Did it just leap onto the forks by itself? I’m reasonably sure that people use the word because every one else uses it, not because they really understand what the adjective means. We often hear that people’s vacations were amazing…how could that be? No wonder then, that people attempting to learn the English language are so confused when confronted with modern speech. English is the most dynamic language in the world and we’ve seen plenty of words hijacked over the years to mean things which are totally removed from the original definitions. In the 60’s it was ‘cool’ and ‘hip’. In the ’80’s it was ‘radical’ or ‘rad’ for short. But for some reason, the use of the word ‘amazing’ to describe all things pleasurable grates on me like sand in a swimsuit. If people learned to use words properly, that would be amazing.